Bird Bath

A bird bath is a shallow open dish of standing water, set out where small birds can land in it to drink and wash. It does not create birds. They already live in the hedges and trees nearby, and the water makes them more likely to spend their day near growing beds, where the insects they hunt are. Breeding pairs feeding nestlings have been counted taking 76 to 174 insects and other small invertebrates a day.

A few details decide whether it works. The water should be no deeper than 5 to 8 cm (2 to 3 in), because birds will not use water they cannot stand up in, and the surface underfoot must be rough - concrete or unglazed terra-cotta, not glazed pottery, which they slip on. A basin 60 to 90 cm (2 to 3 ft) across with an edge to perch on suits most small birds. Cover to escape into has to be close, yet the dish sits 3 to 4.5 m (10 to 15 ft) clear of anything a cat or hawk could hide behind, so a bird sees the approach. Never place it under a feeder, where hulls and droppings fall in. Moving water from a dripper or a small pump is noticed from much further off, and through a hard freeze the basin needs a heater to keep working.

The real cost is the cleaning, and it is not optional. Standing water becomes mosquito larvae within days in warm weather, so it is emptied and refilled daily rather than topped up, scrubbed weekly with soap and a brush, and disinfected with one part bleach to nine parts water, left ten minutes and rinsed. A neglected basin does more harm than no water at all. Birds gathering at shared water also spread disease between them, so if sick birds appear the dish comes down for a few weeks rather than being cleaned harder. It sits badly beside a poultry flock, and beside a resident cat. It belongs near hedgerow and nest boxes, which are what actually hold a breeding population; a pond with a shallow edge already does the same job.